Email marketing is thriving – are you on board?

That’s where you’re wrong. Email marketing is alive and thriving, and the research proves it.

In fact 44% of all consumers prefer to hear weekly from companies sending promotional emails, with the remaining 56% spread far more thinly across four other options – ranging from daily to as infrequently as every couple of months, according to the UK’s Data and Marketing Association.

What about the power of social media, you ask? It just doesn’t have the same return on investment. Not even close.

Email marketing produces between four and five times the return on investment compared to other communication channels. With email, it’s not unusual to make more than your money back, whereas other channels will barely earn you back a quarter of what they spend on marketing.

But it’s not just about return on investment – email builds trust between you and the public and keeps you top of mind by creating more awareness of your brand.

Back to money: Emails are also known to be a powerhouse when it comes to generating new leads, according to a renowned 2017 report with almost one-quarter said developing new leads was email’s greatest marketing strength. Coming in at a close second is email’s ability to grow sales (19%). This was followed at 17% by improved conversion rates (marketing-speak for getting email recipients to take a desired action), then reduced marketing costs (13%) and identifying better quality leads (12%).

In the same report, the majority of respondents (58%) planned to increase their investment in email marketing, followed by another significant group willing to stay the course (35%) with their current email investment.

Why email marketing is a great choice for your business

Email is used for business far more than any other social media. Sure, Facebook might feel more personal with photos of babies, and “here’s-what-I-did-today” updates. But the message feature on Facebook is not how most business people want to connect. For example: How often have you started to talk to someone on Facebook and then switched over to email when things went beyond superficial chat? Most business people will open up their regular email platform and go from there. It’s just too confusing to spread out serious communication over different platforms.

Consumers prefer email contact. Research by MarketingSherpa shows that 60% of people prefer to be contacted through email by businesses, far ahead of the one-third who chose social media or texting.

It lets you customize and personalize your message. With a little bit of legwork, you can divide up your audience and send them messages tailored to their characteristics, such as where they live, their age group, or whether they’re return customers. Want to address them by name in your message? No problem.

Email automation saves time and money. If you automate your email marketing, you’re making a smart choice, according to Lenskold Group’s 2013 Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study. Almost 80% of marketing experts say automation plays the biggest role in making money among their content marketing efforts. And automated emails are happy to work for you on holidays and overnight, responding to clients when everyone else has left the office for the day.

Email makes it easier to track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. When it comes to measuring the bang for your buck, Pondstone’s digital marketing team can help you collect and analyse the data that goes along with your email marketing campaigns. With this information, you can continually improve how your reach out to existing and prospective clients.

One word: Forwarding. If your audience likes what you’re saying (like offering a “welcome” discount), it’s incredibly easy for them to send your message on to anyone they think might be interested. And you didn’t even lift a finger.

Right now is always a good time to step up your efforts in attracting new clients. Whether you want to create a new email marketing strategy or tune-up the one you already have, contact Pondstone to help you make the right email marketing choices.